Quickly, would you rather have as your next president a straight shooting, plain talking, man of the people, or a liberal elitist? Being called an elitist by the Republicans is par for the course, their playbook consists of appealing to the masses by selling themselves as regular Americans. Republicans are the party of values, family and otherwise, the party of the heartland, the party for real, red-blooded patriots. The joke of course, is that the party is run by and represents the blue bloods, and they have been able to convince the middle class that they are the party of the average person, all the while their policies by and large favor the wealthy elites in our society. But now even one of the Democrats own is lobbying the elitist charge, Hilary Clinton, in her latest reincarnation is now passing herself off as a populist, someone who feels the pain of the typical American, who apparently is white, uneducated, and if Clinton has her way, guillible as hell. Obama on the other hand, well, he's an elitist. He listens to economists, not to mention his own experience, and rejects a gas tax holiday, proving that he doesn't care about how much pain people are feeling at the pump. What a nerve this guy, taking advice from experts. Why if he gets elected, odds are he surrounds himself with these so-called experts, people with years of experience and invaluable knowledge in their field to help guide his decisions as president. Then we'll be drowning in elitism.
When will it end? If we allow this elitism to continue, it might just spread. Next thing you know, people will start being influenced by the elites in all walks of life. College students will listen to and learn from professors, sports teams will hire the sharpest coaches with winning track records, and regular, hard working people will start hiring attorneys to handle their legal issues and accountants to help manage their finances. This trend of elitism must stop before it gets out of hand.
The Oxford American dictionary defines elite as the best of a group. An elitist is one who advocates reliance on leadership by a select group. We've seen this trend before, maybe you've heard of the Founding Fathers, an elitist group if there ever was one. FDR, the president who kept our democracy strong in the face of the Great Depression and the Second World War, was noted for surrounding himself with elites, experts in their field, who would actually give advice and not just serve as willing accomplices for their commander. Scandalous. JFK didn't even try to hid his elitism, his guys were called the best and the brightest. Just imagine how all those bitter, uneducated, working class white people would have felt about that guy. And it goes back even further, a couple thousand years ago a man named Jesus went around with 12 elites and instructed people in how to live and treat one another. Can't imagine that kind of thing flying today.
Have we become so beholden to the lowest common denominator that we get offended when someone claims to be knowledgeable and comes off as intelligent and sophisticated? Of course the unspoken claim when labeling someone an elitist is that they are a snob who holds the peasantry in contempt. This is where Clinton is trying to score points in the primaries, and certainly where McCain will hit hardest come the late spring, or late summer, or whenever the general election finally starts up. The question is whether or not voters will continue to buy into the notion that Republicans represent the commoner while the Democrats are the party of those who think their shiite doesn't stink. The beer guzzlers versus the wine sippers, the rock and rollers versus the jazz afficionados, the tough guys versus the pretty boys, the meat eaters against the vegeterians. Race will play a factor in the election to be sure, but social class will be the bigger issue in play. McCain will be the guy from up the street that you go down to the corner pool hall with, knock back a few brews and shoot some stick. Obama is the nerd, the smart kid in class who actually pays attention in class and gets good grades. And the last thing we want in a president is someone with intelligence who pays attention. That's how this whole elitist thing got started back in the 1770's, and of course we all know how that one turned out.
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